Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Higher ed succession planning: Who will follow the leader?

How succession plans are being used to grow and promote in-house talent at all levels of the campus organization By: Carol Patton / University Business, September 2013

Zero. Zip. Zilch.

That’s what college president Don Cameron found after searching the internet back in 1996 for colleges with succession plans. Surprisingly, not much has changed, since such programs are still not common within higher ed institutions.
As president at Guilford Technical Community College in Jamestown, N.C., Cameron had just turned down a job offer from another college, which caught the attention of Guilford’s board chairman. After realizing there wasn’t a Plan B if Cameron had resigned, the chair asked Cameron to develop a succession plan for executive positions at the school.